A property in Raleigh Rd, Northcote, is set to be forcibly sold by Auckland Council because of an unpaid rates bill of nearly $220,000. Photo / Google
Auckland Council hired a private investigator to track an absent homeowner and is now preparing a forced sale of the property over hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid rates.
The council has launched legal action, and the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Raleigh Rd home in Northcote will be sold by the High Court in six months if the owner does not come forward.
If it goes ahead, it would be just the second time the council has carried out a forced sale to recoup an unpaid rates bill.
Group chief financial officer Ross Tucker said “exhaustive efforts” had been made to speak to the owner, Choi Wu, who is understood to be living overseas.
Rates were last paid on the property in 2005. The unpaid bill had ballooned to $219,946.99 as of July 2023, including interest and penalties.
The council would not disclose the current rating debt.
Property records show the home, which is down a private driveway and part of a block of flats, was last sold in 1996 for $438,000.
Its new council valuation is $1.025 million.
“For some years, we have been trying to contact the owner, and we are now entering the final opportunity before the property enters a rating sale process,” Tucker said.
“Despite extensive efforts to contact the owner over many years – including direct correspondence, public notification and professional services to find the owner – we haven’t been able to make contact.
“We do not take a rating sale lightly, and it really is a last resort.”
Tucker said all attempts to speak to the owner had been unsuccessful, apart from one instance.
“Despite a short period of email correspondence in 2023 and unverifiable claims from third parties purporting to act on the owner’s behalf, no payment plan has been established, and no material payments have been received.
“The council is taking action now, as it needs to recover the unpaid rates, and there may be issues with unlawful access to the property and degradation of the site.”
Due to the absence of verified contact, the property not being owner-occupied, and the failure of all previous engagement attempts, the statutory conditions for a forced rating sale had now been met under the Local Government (Ratings) Act, Tucker said.
A timeline provided by the council shows the last full rates payment was made in 2005.
The council was in contact with tenants and a property manager between 2006 and 2012, but neither had authority to address the rates arrears.
In May 2014, the council hired a private investigator to track Wu before starting legal proceedings the following month, and registering a charging order against the property title in 2015.
“New information about the property’s appropriate legal categorisation then emerged, which halted court proceedings while the council worked through associated legal details.”
In 2021, the council applied to the District Court to sell the property as abandoned land.
But, after posting a public notice in January 2023, the council received correspondence from a person purporting to be Choi Wu, which prevented the land from being treated as abandoned.
The council is now calling for anyone who knows Wu or immediate family members to make contact “to help resolve this matter and establish a solution”.
If the sale went ahead, Tucker said the proceeds would be used to recover the full amount of outstanding rates, penalties and associated costs, including real estate agency and legal fees.
The remainder of the proceeds would be released to the owner or held in trust until claimed.
Tucker said anyone concerned about paying their rates was encouraged to get in touch to discuss assistance options.
These included a government-funded rates rebate scheme, a rates postponement scheme for residential properties, and flexible payment options.
In August last year, an imminent forced sale of a home in Ōtara was abandoned at the 11th hour after council officials learned the owner was dead.
The Guthrey Pl house was set to be sold over an unpaid rates bill of $317,000. At the time, it was the city’s longest outstanding rates bill. No payments had been made since March 2005.
The council had tried for years to contact the owner and arrange repayment, without success.
However, after coverage in the Herald, the court-ordered auction was abandoned when relatives of the property’s owner, Joseph William Leef, contacted council officials to tell them Leef was dead.
The only successful compulsory ratings sale in the supercity occurred in 2015.
Charlotte Hareta Marsh lost her home of 20 years in a court-ordered sale after failing to pay rates for nine years.
Despite repeated warnings, she refused to recognise the authority of Auckland Council and claimed to have paid her rates instead to the “rightful land owner”, Arikinui o Tuhoe, a self-proclaimed sovereign authority.
At the time of the sale, Marsh owed more than $12,000 in rates and penalties, and nearly $3000 in court costs.
The late activist Penny Bright’s 11-year refusal to pay rates nearly cost her her Kingsland home in the months before her death.
Bright had disputed and refused to pay her rates, citing “the lack of transparency in council spending on private-sector consultants and contractors”.
The council went to court to have Bright’s home forcibly sold to recoup tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid rates and penalties, and it was listed for sale in April 2017.
But in May that year, a deal was struck after Bright applied for a rates postponement, which was accepted by the council. The forced sale proceedings were halted.
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald, with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.